1. Field of Art
The disclosure generally relates to the field of digital image capture, and more specifically to the manipulation of exposure timing to achieve cinematic image blurring.
2. Description of the Related Art
The advancement of digital video and image encoding has led to increasingly sophisticated image capture techniques. The capture of digital images by an image capture device (hereinafter “camera”) is performed by an image sensor. Many types of image sensors are commonly used in cameras and other image-capturing devices, such as charge-coupled devices (CCDs) and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductors (CMOSs). Image sensors convert light, such as light entering the aperture of a camera through a camera lens, into image information. In this way, a camera can “capture” objects before it by converting the light reflected from the objects and passing through the camera lens into an image.
Modern image sensors are able to capture a large amount of light in a relatively small window. This allows cameras to capture frames with very small exposures, which produces very sharp images. However, such image capture can produce undesirably crisp images when played back in video format. In some applications, such as cinema, it is desirable to have a high amount of motion blur in each image, which requires relatively long exposure times. However, due to the high light sensitivity of modern images sensors, images with long exposure times become over exposed, and are not suitable for viewing. Therefore, a process is needed to allow modern image sensors to achieve motion blur without over exposing the image.